Searchers walk into the scene of a deadly mudslide that covers the road, Wednesday, March 26, 2014, in Oso, Wash. Sixteen bodies have been recovered, but authorities believe at least 24 people were killed. And scores of others are still unaccounted for, although many of those names were believed to be duplicates or people who escaped safely. (AP Photo/Rick Wilking, Pool)

Searchers walk into the scene of a deadly mudslide that covers the road, Wednesday, March 26, 2014, in Oso, Wash. Sixteen bodies have been recovered, but authorities believe at least 24 people were killed. And scores of others are still unaccounted for, although many of those names were believed to be duplicates or people who escaped safely. (AP Photo/Rick Wilking, Pool)

This combination of images provided by NASA shows the Oso, Wash. area on Jan. 18, 2014, top, and the same area on March 23, 2014, bottom, after a March 22 landslide sent muddy debris spilling across the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River. The debris engulfed numerous homes, resulting in the deaths of at least 14 people. (AP Photo/NASA)

This March 24, 2014 photo released by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the extent and impacts from the March 22 mudslide near Arlington in northwest Washington state. Sixteen bodies have been recovered, but authorities believe at least 24 people were killed. And scores of others are still unaccounted for, although many of those names were believed to be duplicates or people who escaped safely. (AP Photo/King County Sheriff, Air Support Unit)

A flag, put up by volunteers helping search the area, stands in the ruins of a home left at the end of a deadly mudslide from the now-barren hillside seen about a mile behind, Tuesday, March 25, 2014, in Oso, Wash. At least 14 people were killed in the 1-square-mile slide that hit in a rural area about 55 miles northeast of Seattle on Saturday. Several people also were critically injured, and homes were destroyed. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Jammi Parris, a waitress at the Blue Bird Cafe in downtown Arlington, Wash., paints a yellow ribbon on the window of the cafe, Tuesday, March 25, 2014, in tribute to the victims and people missing after a massive mudslide struck the nearby community of Oso, Wash., on Saturday, killing at least 16 people and leaving dozens missing. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

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DARRINGTON, Wash. (AP) â€” Becky Bach watches and waits, hoping that search crews find her brother and three other relatives who are missing in Washington state’s deadly mudslide.

Doug Massingale waits too, for word about his 4-month-old granddaughter. Searchers were able to identify carpet from the infant’s bedroom, but a log jam stood in the way of a more thorough effort to find little Sanoah Huestis, known as “Snowy.”

With little hope to cling to, family members of the missing are beginning to confront a grim reality: Their loved ones might never be found, remaining entombed forever inside a mountain of mud that is believed to have claimed more than 20 lives.

“It just generates so many questions if they don’t find them,” Bach said. “I’ve never known anybody to die in a natural disaster. Do they issue death certificates?”

Search crews using dogs, bulldozers and their bare hands kept slogging through the mess of broken wood and mud again Wednesday, looking for more bodies or anyone who might still be alive nearly five days after a wall of fast-moving earth destroyed a small rural community. But authorities have acknowledged they might have to leave some victims buried in the debris some 55 miles northeast of Seattle.

Authorities on Wednesday reduced to number of people missing to 90. That number had been fluctuating â€” at one point reaching as high as 220 â€” but authorities were able to verify that dozens of people once reported missing had been located, Snohomish County Emergency Management Director John Pennington said.

Besides the 90 confirmed missing, authorities are looking into a list of 35 people who may or may not have been in the area at the time of the slide, Pennington said.

No victims were recovered Wednesday, leaving the official death toll at 16, with an additional eight bodies located but not recovered, he said. Authorities said they expected to update the official toll Thursday morning.

Trying to recover every corpse would be impractical and dangerous.

The debris field is about a square mile and 30 to 40 feet deep in places, with a moon-like surface that includes quicksand-like muck, rain-slickened mud and ice. The terrain is difficult to navigate on foot and makes it treacherous or impossible to bring in heavy equipment.

To make matters worse, the pile is laced with other hazards that include fallen trees, propane and septic tanks, twisted vehicles and countless shards of shattered homes.

“We have to get on with our lives at some point,” said Bach, who has spent the past several days in the area in hopes that searchers would find her brother, his wife, her 20-year-old great niece and the young girl’s fiance.

The knowledge that some victims could be abandoned to the earth is difficult to accept.

“Realistically … I honestly don’t think they’re going to find them alive,” Bach said, crying. “But as a family, we’re trying to figure out what to do if they find no bodies.”

Bach spoke via phone about a wedding the family had planned for summer at the rural home that was destroyed. And how, she wondered, do you plan a funeral without a body? “We’ll probably just have a memorial, and if they find the bodies eventually, then we’ll deal with that then.”

A death certificate, issued by the state, is legal proof that someone has died. Families often need them to settle their affairs. The authority to issue them starts with a county medical examiner or coroner, said Donn Moyer, spokesman for the Washington State Department of Health. If and when it appears